Best Places To Go To Prison

As it stands now, Martha Stewart owes the federal government five months in prison--but it's not clear when or even if she'll have to serve that time. After sentencing her today, U.S. District Judge
Miriam
Cedarbaum
Miriam Cedarbaum
agreed to stay that sentence pending Stewart's appeal, which will take months if not years.

Should the appeals process fail to work in Stewart's favor, she will likely report to a minimum-security camp in either Danbury, Conn., or Alderson, W. Va., both of which house females.

Because of her short sentence and the nonviolent nature of her crime, the former
Martha Stewart Living
chief is eligible for these minimum-security facilities, which, while they still represent incarceration, are much less menacing than higher-security prisons. But the federal Bureau of Prisons has discretion as to where Stewart ends up. Indeed, Stewart probably was not encouraged by the fate of
Lea
Fastow
Lea Fastow
, the wife of former
Enron
Chief Financial Officer
Andrew
Fastow
Andrew Fastow
, who is serving a year for filing fraudulent tax returns at a Houston prison rather than at a nearby minimum-security camp in Bryan, Tex.

Despite that grim precedent, Stewart should take a cue from her friend
Samuel
Waksal
Samuel Waksal
, the convicted former chief executive of
ImClone Systems
, who asked to serve at one of the camps on our Best Places To Go To Prison list. After his conviction, the former chief executive requested to serve his seven-year sentence at Florida's Eglin, where
Steve Madden
's
namesake is now housed. That joint was once considered so cushy that the term "Club Fed" was coined to describe it. Waksal nevertheless was shipped off instead to the Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institute in Minersville, Pa., which did not make our list.

Stewart isn't eligible for any of the prisons on our list because they don't house females, but the facilities she'll be aiming for will be similarly equipped.

Still on the docket is the disgraced
Tyco International
clan, with the exception of the company's ex-attorney,
Mark
Belnick
Mark Belnick
, who was acquitted yesterday. The retrial of
L. Dennis
Kozlowski
L. Dennis Kozlowski
and
Marc
Swartz
Marc Swartz
has been scheduled for January. All are being tried by the state of New York and not the U.S. government, however, which means that they won't be eligible for any federal prison camp.

The same goes for
Jamie
Olis
Jamie Olis
, the former
Dynegy
executive who was sentenced to 24 years on charges of accounting fraud. No one serving more than ten years can be placed at a camp.

Still, there are plenty of potential prison campers left.
Adelphia Communications
founder
John
Rigas
John Rigas
and his son were convicted of fraud last week. The fraud trial for former
HealthSouth
CEO
Richard
Scrushy
Richard Scrushy
, which was originally scheduled for Aug. 23, has been delayed and could be pushed all the way to January.
Bernard
Ebbers
Bernard Ebbers
, the ex-chief of
WorldCom
--now called
MCI
--is also awaiting a trial date.